The basis of assessment to determine reduced annual school fees is the relevant annual positive gross family income and any other earnings and assets.
The relevant annual positive gross family income is defined as follows: all positive income at the disposal of all persons belonging to the same household no matter if the persons are married to each other or not.
This includes all types of income, such as:
- Income from employment. This also includes additional allowances paid by the employer (e.g. kindergarden grant, school fee grant, additional allowances for meals etc.), one-time special payments (e. g. Christmas bonus, birthday bonus / performance-related bonus) and the non-taxable components of the total gross amount (e.g. extra pay for work at night / shift bonus)
- Income from self-employment (relevant is the earned surplus, i.e. the profit before taxes)
- Pensions (civil servants)
- Income from agricultural and forestry activities
- Income from commercial business
- Income from capital investment, e.g. interest, dividends, fund yield, share price gains
- Income from rental of a property or land
- Other earnings/income.
Positive gross income from abroad are also taken into account when calculating the relevant income.
The following items are also considered as income:
- Low income which is taxed based on a flat rate
- Payments due to maintenance claims received by any family member. If for the relevant assessment period no evidence of the maintenance claim can be presented in the form of a maintenance agreement or a notice on an advance of the maintenance payment, this amount is calculated based on the currently valid so-called “Düsseldorfer Tabelle“.
- Income due to labour promotion pursuant to the German Social Code (Sozialgesetzbuch III = SGB III), e.g. maintenance money, bridging allowance, transition allowance, short-time allowance, unemployment allowance, Arbeitslosengeld 2 (ALG 2), payments on winding-up
- Illness allowance, maternity benefit, injury benefit, injury pension, housing allowance, parental benefit
- Gross pensions (incl. the amount not subject to taxation)
- Payments pursuant to the German military pay law or German Civil Code
- Payments received for the Federal German voluntary service (Bundesfreiwilligendienst = BFD or a voluntary social year (Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr)
- Severance payments
- Student assistance pursuant to the German Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz (Bafög) (the partial amount that is a non-repayable grant)
- Care allowance
- Payments made pursuant to the German livelihood support act, civil servant act and other social laws
- Other types of income/earnings.
It is not possible to offset the income against losses arising from other income and against losses of other persons who must contribute to the costs.
The list above is not exhaustive. Additional items may be added to the list at any time.
The following applies to all applications under the School Fee Reduction Programme submitted from 1 December 2023: An application can be submitted at any time. The application is valid from the month in which the application is submitted and at most retroactively for the two previous months in the school year in which the application is submitted.